Foetuses are being aborted for minor and treatable imperfections such as cleft lip and palate or club foot every year in the UK.

New research suggests that dozens of abortions are carried out but the reasons are not being officially recorded.

Health bosses have admitted there may be 'discrepancies' in their records after European monitoring group Eurocat found the number of abortions for minor abnormalities could be up to three times as high as official statistics show.

According to Eurocat, 157 foetuses were aborted in England and Wales between 2006 and 2010 for cleft lip and palate.

However, the Sunday Times reported that just 14 of those were recorded as such by the Department of Health.

A total of 205 foetuses with club foot were also aborted in the same period.

Both of these abnormalities can be corrected after birth.

A DoH spokeswoman said: 'We are aware that there is a potential discrepancy in figures and are looking into this in further detail.'

Obstetrician Stuart Campbell told The Sunday Times the number of abortions for treatable conditions was 'horrific'.

My daughter was born with a reverse club foot. The Lady who headed the local March of Dimes effort, Flo McQuaig, found out about it when Mary was only a few months old. We hadn't even thought about March of Dimes until Flo showed up.

For the next year we made weekly trips to the Hillis Medical Center in Gainesville where Doctor Homer Paschal would straighten the foot a tiny bit and put on a plaster cast.

Every Thursday evening I would remove the old cast to get ready for the Friday morning trip to Gainesville.

Mary wasn't even very late learning to walk and run, the foot was ready to go pretty much on time.

We had various family members ready to make the weekly trip, if I couldn't get off from work someone else always could.

The foot ended up near perfect, good enough to get Mary through Army basic training with colors flying.

5
posted on 02/03/2013 12:22:55 PM PST
by SWAMPSNIPER
(The Second Amendment, a Matter of Fact, Not a Matter of Opinion)

One of those club footed children might have cured cancer or invented a revolutionary power source. I’m sure Stephen Hawking would have looked perfectly fine in an ultrasound (had they existed then). He looked fine at birth. But by age 21 he began to suffer from motor neuron disease as a result of ALS. He has been nearly immoble in a wheelchair for decades, but has expanded our knowledge and thought on the universe more than anyone since Einstein. If his mother’s MD could have told her what would happen to him before birth...would she have aborted him? Looking at these stats I would say today many “mothers” would do just that.

Good story about why babies should be born. A nephew in-law had a baby 11 years ago and it was born with a cleft palate. I remember the look of fear on his face as he tried to digest something was wrong with his new daughter. Today, the girl looks absolutely normal and is going to be a knockout. She’s also so bright it’s a bit of work to maintain the adult role when having a conversation.

Dominic’s father formerly was an Assemblyman in Wisconsin who resigned to do a couple of tours of duty in Iraq. When he returned he ran for Judge and was elected. They have 8 children. Dominic Pio is their youngest. I met him at a Pro-Life Coalition dinner for President Bush in 2004.

At that time, 1968, there were still a lot of doctors not up to speed. We talked to one who wanted to wait 5 years then start a round of surgery and bone breaking. Mary would have suffered for 5 or 6 years of that.

I remember digging a lot of baby poop out of the top of those casts with Q tips, LOL.

My mother in law got upset when she found out I was using the wire cutters from my toolbox to split the old casts. I asked her how she would do it and she couldn't come up with an answer. It was probably the only time in her life she was speechless!

19
posted on 02/03/2013 1:38:44 PM PST
by SWAMPSNIPER
(The Second Amendment, a Matter of Fact, Not a Matter of Opinion)

I was born with a club foot in 1960 - still have one of the casts they used - about the size of my thumb. I was just telling my mom how I remember her doing my foot exercizes to me every night when I was a toddler. (She would hold my foot and push it in and hold it, release, do it again and again and again.) And how patient she was and how she kept at it night after night.

In my Junior year of High School I took 10th in State in skiing - both my mom and dad were in tears. They said when I was born they, or the doctors, did not know if I would even be able to walk properly.

21
posted on 02/03/2013 1:55:07 PM PST
by 21twelve
("We've got the guns, and we got the numbers" adapted and revised from Jim M.)

This is a sweet very positive Life story (thank you); and wow, does this baby boy have a powerful name or what? And, hey, are those footballs on DP’s suit? Your first Super Bowl Dominic! (Our first son’s first Super Bowl was in 1986... da Bears...) :)

23
posted on 02/03/2013 2:00:08 PM PST
by mlizzy
(If people spent an hour a week in Eucharistic adoration, abortion would be ended. --Mother Teresa)

It depends on the type of clubbed foot. In the case of tendons pulling the foot inward, where the baby was essentially forced to sitting indian style in the womb and then had the feet pushed upward, casting for months may work. For cases where the bones themselves formed at an angle, yes, surgery is necessary.

Foetuses are being aborted for minor and treatable imperfections such as cleft lip and palate or club foot every year in the UK.

If you go to China and walk the streets, you will not see one mentally-retarded person. You will see no one in wheel-chairs, you will see no extremely short, nor will you see any deformed people. Given the "one-child" policy, as well as famine as recently as 50 years ago, anyone with suspected birth-defects was considered a "useless eater." Not only were they all aborted, they were killed after birth as well.

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